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Friday, May 30, 2014

South Sudan’s Vice President, James Wani Igga: A problem rather than a conscientious leader

Photo: Gurtong.net

Throughout
the history of South Sudan, the tribes in the three Southern states of South
Sudan have always seen themselves as more amiable and ‘civilized’ compared to
their Nilotic brothers, Jieeng and Naath people. While there are cases
in which one can, at minimal, accept that to be true, history and a close look
at the actual geopolitical realities in these three states and their
inter-tribal relations, tell a different story.

So, one comes to realize that this
vacuous sentiment is maintained by intellectuals and politicians in these
states rather than by the average citizenry in the villages. A look at
historical leaders and freedom fighters like Aggrey Jaden, Joseph Oduho, Father
Saturnino, Joseph Lagu, Emedio Teffeng, Wani Igga among others, proves that
South Sudanese leaders, no matter their tribes, can just be as tribalist as
Jieeng and Naath people, the largest two tribes.

I’ve not seen a single case in
which leaders in the three Southern states of South Sudan have acted as better
leaders than the leaders from the western and eastern South Sudan.

All the governors in South
Sudan suck up to the president in equal measure with no exception. Even when
they know the president is wrong and that a given decision is detrimental to
the future of the country, these governors would rather see the nation burn
than to correctly advise the president.

But what’s my point?

After December 15, 2013 mutiny
in Juba and the subsequent tribal fight that soon after turned tribal and
genocidal, one would assume South Sudan could have unleashed the wisdom of
their best brains to contain the situation.

When it became clear that SPLM
internal leadership wrangle turned into, largely, Jieeng vs. Naath, people like
me assumed other tribes in Equatoria led by the funny and always playful South
Sudanese VP, James Wani Igga, would mobilize other tribes to bring Jieeng and
Naath together and end the bloodshed.

But no! Wani actually became
part of the problem and his speeches became increasingly divisive,
opportunistic and bizarre. Instead of helping the President make sound decisions,
the funny man went along with the filth fed to the president by the
opportunists around the president. Instead of peace he started mobilization for
war! With oxymoronic touch, he uttered peace but called the ‘Equatorians’ to
mobilize for war!

However, we need to remember
that the flame that lit and obliterated South Sudan was started by VP James
Wani Igga through his December 8, 2013 press conference, which he convened as a
response to December 6, 2013 press conference by Dr. Riek Machar and his
so-called ‘reformist’ group. Instead of
showing leadership, Wani further inflamed the situation by using childish and
inflammatory language.

Bizarrely, he denied that
there were leadership problems in the SPLM when the press conference he was
responding to was one example of the leadership problems. Besides, the postponement
Political Bureau meeting in March of 2013, the president’s side-stepping of the
Political Bureau, the president’s dissolution of the party structures and the
postponement of National Liberation Council meeting on the 9th were
all glaring indications of the problems the funny man was denying.

A good leader would have
waited for the president to discuss the grievances raised by the group in order
to present a sound, informed and appropriate response to the group. Wani’s
response misled the president. The good old President Kiir followed exactly the
attitude Wani had ignited on December 8, 2013 by calling the ‘reformist’ group
‘disgruntled’.

It’s true, and we all know,
that the ‘reformist’ group of December 6, 2013 press conference are corrupt
too. They were in the government for years with little development to show for
it. However, a sound leadership, a leadership that governs the people and whose
national fate lies in its hands, would have acted with greater understanding
and precociousness. But no, Wani acted like a teenager and President Kiir
followed suit on December 14, 2013 with that infamous, pointless and disastrous
speech, and his response to the mutiny on December 16… clad in non-SPLA military
fatigue.

Why can’t Wani, an educated
man, guide President Kiir in a way that can get the nation out of this
political and tribal abyss? Is telling the president the truth about the fate of
the country very dangerous? If so then what the hell are you doing in such a
government?

Riek Machar was South Sudan’s
VP for 8 years. However, he did little to nothing to help the president make
the right decisions. Wani is doing the same thing or even worse by ‘sucking up’
to the president in what Ugandan playwright, John Ruganda, called ‘Bootlicking’
in his play, ‘The Burdens.’

The VP now yaps about Riek
Machar in every event forgetting the fact that it’s the same failed system he’s
part of that produces the likes of Riek Machar: over ambitious, callous and clueless!

Without any fundamental
systemic reforms in South Sudan, South Sudan will never be peaceful. Wani is
therefore becoming a big eye-sour for South Sudan and letting the president and
South Sudanese down.

He let South Sudan down by
showing grotesque failure of leadership on December 8, 2013 in SPLM leadership
office in Juba. Admittedly, he continues to express nothing but political filth
that serves nothing but to further aggravate the problem.

Wani needs to know or do the
following:

·He can’t yap about South Sudan and the currrent
administration being ‘democratic’ when they are building a nation of single
opinion where any different point of view is seen as subversive or treasonous. He’s
educated so he can tell us… what kind of democracy is that?

·South Sudan TV is used as a voice for filthy
and divisive politics. The VP and the President are always giving speeches on
SSTV in their Nigerian national dresses. You sometimes wonder as to whether
it’s Abuja or Juba.

·Let President Kiir know that nations are not built
by encouraging them to develop as timid nations of single-opinions. Informed
and diverse opinions shape decision-making and encourage inter-tribal
understanding.

·Veteran journalists, Nhial Bol and Alfred Taban,
now face the same needless censorship they faced under the brutal, stone-age
theocracy of Khartoum. What happened to the values you fought for, Mr. Vice
President? Journalists are being intimidated with you as the VP of the nation.
How different are you from the likes of Nafie Ali Nafie or Mustafa Osman?

·When will he ever be serious and stop being a
comedian all the time? Nations are not built by comedies!

·He’s done nothing to alleviate tribal tension
as he continues to yap about peace while calling for war. Classic oxymoron!

·He initiated the mockery that eventually led to
the bloodshed. Instead of showing level-headedness and the less belligerent
attitude intellectuals in the three southern states of South Sudan keep
boasting about, Wani came out as a childish, militant and heartless stooge of
the president not interested in any amicable solution. So the VP also has BLOOD
ON HIS HANDS!

·The ‘reformists’ publicly aired their
grievances to South Sudanese. That’s what sane people do in a democracy. Well,
until some of them became insane after December 15. They gave the president a
chance to respond and even postponed a planned rally to allow room for dialogue
as advised by church leaders. But what did the good old comedian do on December
8, 2013 and the President on December 14? Instead of offering a chance for an
amicable solution or responding as national leaders, who should be part of
solution-seeking in South Sudan, Mr. Igga and Mr. Mayardit did the unthinkable!
They mocked the ‘reformists’ group like, as I wrote last year, ‘school boys in
the school playground.’ “Step on my feet and I’ll step on yours and let’s all
go to hell!”

·Don’t worry, Mr. Igga, you’ll not be pushed
back ‘twice.’

·Show that you’re educated, you have the
interest of the country at heart, and that you are not a mindless ‘bootlicker.’

·In June 2011, Wani Igga, then the Speaker of
National Assembly, called for the implementation of the ‘Federal System’ but in
May 2014, Mr. Igga rejected the ‘Federal System’ he was advocating for in 2011.
The only reason is that he’d be seen as siding with the-always-rebelling Riek
Machar if he embraces ‘Federalism’ now! What a leader, Wani is! He has no
political stance but what his superiors hold dear! ‘Equatorians’ still maintain the same stance
Igga wanted in 201. So the VP is left alone and in the cold!

·The South bled and is still bleeding and Mr.
Igga is in the centre as part of the causal factors; the major ones

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